A Monastery on the island of Crete is evicting a social facility from a property it owns with the aim to establish a center against abortion.
The plans to evict the “Social Grocery”, a kind of food bank, run by the Municipality of Chania has triggered an outrage and a storm of reactions in the local council.
the Monastery’s concession to chania Municiplaity expires on December 31, 2023.
However, according to local media zarpanews.gr, the Monastery insists on its termination already now and is determined to oppose any extension.
Deputy mayor for social policy, Eleni Zerboudaki, said she has received four phone calls since last Christmas “reminding me that the concession expires. the Monastery doesn’t want to enter into any discussion with us, not even about the amount of the rent.”
Center Against Abortion
Zervoudaki revealed that the abbot of the Monastery told her in their telephone conversation that an anti-abortion center is going to open and operate in the specific property.
In their statements, leaders of factions and councilors expressed their displeasure with this development which will put the Municipality in a very difficult position, citing an anti-social decision by the local church
Characteristically, one council member emphasized that the Church with this move, “will deprive the Municipality of a structure that serves the mission of the Church, of solidarity” and called on the council not to comply with the eviction.
On the same wavelength, another member stressed that the Social Grocery is a structure of the highest solidarity and welfare.
A third member questioned the Monastery’ decision saying that the property “was inherited to the church by the local faithful” as many do and such donations have often limitations for their use.
“The use planned by the Monastery takes us back to the Middle Ages. It puts women in danger, it takes us back to other times” noted another member of the Municipality Council of Chania.
Mostly males running the Greek church,they of course will never be in a highly emotional difficult life situation where an abortion is deemed necessary by them for their personal reasons which they have the human right to be in control of not the church.Empathy,sympathy and understanding on all life matters would bring the Greek church forward into a place that relates to the needs of their congregation as a whole and does not punish them for their decisions instead embraces them and helps them to carry on as stable members of society.